Netscape Communicator

Netscape's web browser has been available for Linux since before version 1.0. It is available from the downloads section of the Netscape Web site. The latest version is Communicator 4.5 and includes Netscape Messenger--a combined mail and news client, Netscape Composer a graphical HTML authoring tool and Netscape Navigator the web browser. Most features found in the Windows version of Communicator work under Linux including Java and Javascript. Several third party plug-ins for features such as video and audio are also available. The Linux version of Communicator is free for both commercial and non-commercial use and is included on the CD of many Linux distributions.

Corel WordPerfect 8.0

The latest version of Corel's flagship word processor, WordPerfect 8, is currently available for Linux. WordPerfect has been available for Linux from third parties since version 6, but with version 8 Corel has decided to make it available for download on the Web. Information about Corel's commitment to Linux and instructions on downloading WordPerfect can be found at this URL. Most features of the Windows version of WordPerfect are available in the Linux version, including the spelling and grammar check, The Internet publisher and the ability to read MS Word 97 files. Some features are not available in the version on the Web, including the "Font Installer", "Equation Editor" and drawing tools. A commercial version is available containing the missing features and can be purchased for around $65 US.

The GIMP

The GIMP is a piece of image editing software similar to Adobe's Photoshop. It was originally developed for the Unix/Linux platform by a group of programmers on the Internet (Similar to how Linux was developed) and is available for free download (including source code) from this URL. Over 20 different types of file formats are supported by GIMP including JPEG and TIFF. Many types of image operations are supported including layers, color balance and normalizing. GIMP also includes its own scripting language, allowing advanced users to program their own macros and filters.

ICQ

The Java version of Mirabilis's ICQ client runs under Linux. The ICQ client is available for download here. You will also need to install a version of the Java Development kit (JDK) on your computer that can be found at this location, and is sometimes included on Linux CDs. Version .981a is currently the latest version of ICQ for Java it has not been updated in about a year. Many ICQ features are not supported by the Java version. However, facilities exist for basic messaging, file transfers and chats. Several people have also written ICQ clients for Linux. The third party clients will generally be available as native Linux programs, and thus will not require the JDK.